What Dreams May Come
by MarbleGlove
Summary: Methos' mind is not one you'd want to be stuck in, aka the one where the inception team attempts extraction on Adam Pierson.


Disclaimer: I own neither Highlander nor Inception, neither the characters nor the concepts.

Author's Note: This was originally written as a comment-fic, in response to the prompt: Inception/Highlander, Methos + Dream Team, Methos' mind is _not_ one you'd want to be stuck in.

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><p><strong>What Dreams May Come<strong>

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><p>"What the hell, Ariadne."<p>

They were all squinting in the bright light.

"Hey, it's Paris. The architecture is right. It's just the sun that's…"

"A desert sun? Nothing like a Parisian sun?"

"If it wasn't Ariadne, it must be Pierson, and if it's him then he'll be fine with it. Let's get going."

At least Eames' vision was beginning to get accustomed to the glaring illumination. "I agree with Arthur on that, the sun isn't going to be a problem. It's the shadows that are the problem."

"The shadows?"

"Can you see anything in them? Anything at all? Because I can't. And when I put my hand in…" He showed them his hand. It had teeth marks on it.

They considered the shadow that stretched out over one patch of pavement. It looked remarkably like a gateway into an abyss.

"Not all the shadows look like that. We can see the interiors of the buildings, so those should be fine."

"If we can get through the doors past the shadows in the doorways." "Should be?" Eames and Ariadne spoke at the same time.

"Be careful. And let's get on with it. We need to find the bookstore and find Pierson's journal."

They made their way carefully down the street, attempting to look carefree while also avoiding the shadows. At least their eyes were becoming accustomed to the light, although that made the abyss shadows harder to distinguish from the regular shadows.

It was slow going and made more nerve wracking by the projections who milled around.

"Have you looked at the projections? They're not Parisian."

Eames glared at Ariadne. Yes, he had noticed the projections. They had all noticed the projections.

They looked to be of all nationalities, all ethnicities, and all time periods. It was unusual for someone to project an ethnicity that wasn't their own. It happened sometimes, but not often, and he'd never seem someone who was so thoroughly multicultural as this.

"It's kind of hard to not notice projections when they are noticing us!" He spoke through gritted teeth, trying to maintain his casual air. Projections who noticed dreamers tried to kill them and these projections were noticing them. The fact that they weren't attacking was deeply unnerving.

He never thought he'd be in a situation where he wanted someone to try to kill him.

"Hello!"

Eames just about jumped out of his skin but was pleased to notice that at least he wasn't the only one. Ariadne had given out a shriek and Arthur had his gun pointed at the man practically before Eames had landed.

The projection looked disapproving. "Put that away."

It was a man, only wearing a loincloth, and weathered heavily enough that it was hard to tell how old he was. He had the musculature of a seasoned fighter though, and Eames would not want to get into a fight with him.

Eames was quite pleased to see that Arthur did not lower his gun.

"Why should I?"

"You're new here, aren't you? Weapons stay in the shadows and only come out at need. You don't seem to be putting up much of a fight, integrating into the society well enough, that they're leaving you be. We're accepting of strangers here. But if you're going to be dangerous, you're going to have to hide in the shadows until we ride again."

"Ride?" Eames asked, but the man continued to stare at Arthur who just stared back over his gun.

"Do you want to go to the shadows?"

"Is that a threat?"

"Only if you want it to be. Otherwise, it's a choice."

Bantering with projections was not supposed to happen.

Another thing that was not supposed to happen was for a single shadow, only a few inches wide along the edge of a doorstep to stretch out like it was evening except that it was stretching out into the bright light and was remaining the endless darkness, ready to swallow them whole, or at least swallow Arthur whole.

"Arthur," Eames tried to pretend his voice didn't tremble even the littlest bit. He was good at pretending. "I think you had better put the weapon away."

Arthur flashed a glance at him, followed his line of sight, saw the shadow, and had the gun tucked away all within a second, but he didn't move at all. The man clearly had ice water in his veins because if one of those shadows had been that close to him, Eames would have moved a bit further away.

The projection just nodded his approval.

"So, what are you doing here? You didn't come here the usual way."

"Is there a usual way?"

"Sure, there's a lightning storm and then the shadows come alive and then we have new comers. The new comers are either taken back to the shadows or allowed to roam around."

"Does that happen often?"

The projection shrugged.

"Why aren't you attacking us?" Ariadne asked suddenly.

Eames flinched and hissed, "Don't give him ideas."

The projection looked bored rather than inspired. "It's been a long time since I let my subconscious act without my specific permission."

"Your subconscious. _Your_ subconscious."

"Of course," the man—not a projection?—said. "Welcome to the club."

"Thanks for the welcome, but I think we actually want to get on our way."

"There's no rush."

"Oh, I think there is." Eames was really hoping that the projection would attack like a regular projection because he was getting increasingly nervous about this whole conversation.

"When I said 'welcome,' I might not have been absolutely accurate. You may or may not be well, but you have certainly come here. And nobody leaves here."

"I think you'll find that we do." Arthur pulled the gun again and shot the man point blank in the chest. Or at least tried to. But as fast as Arthur was, a shadow surged up, covered him and receded back to a nearby doorway, leaving the man untouched.

Eames had his own gun out and stood on the far side of the man. "Where is Arthur?"

Ariadne had her gun out as well, just a second later, standing to Eames' right.

They both ignored the shadows creeping towards them.

The man looked unimpressed.

"He'll come back, when he changes enough or when we next ride, whichever comes first."

"Where is Arthur?" Eames sure hoped that Arthur was dead. Then he could wake up and yell at Yusuf about what the bloody hell was up with whatever drugs their target was on. This was not how the job was supposed to happen.

"He's around. Waste not, want not, I always say." And the shadows surged again and the man was gone.

"One of us is going to have to go up and talk to Yusuf, about what drug he's using. This isn't right."

"You think it's the drugs?" Ariadne sounded hopeful. Maybe if it was just the drugs, then the rest of this cluster would work itself out okay. That's what Eames was thinking, at least.

"You keep looking around. I'm going to get Yusuf. We can always try the job again, later." And he shot himself in the head.

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><p>It hurt waking up.<p>

Hurt like a combination of a migraine and a heart attack. Ouch. He was going to have to kill Yusuf for experimenting without telling them.

"Yusuf? I'm going to kill you. Ouch." He spoke without opening his eyes. He knew the light in the warehouse was dim but it sure felt bright behind his eyelids.

"Eames. You woke up from the dead." Ariadne spoke in a tightly controlled voice.

"Ariadne? How did you wake up before me? And why don't you sound as pained as I do?"

"You didn't wake up." If her voice wasn't so tightly controlled, it would be hysterical. He could hear it trembling underneath. "You were struck by lightning and healed. We're still in the dream."

He cracked open an eye. The sun shone down like a solid mass of lightening.

He checked his totem. He was still dreaming.

"And the shadows took your gun."

"But not you or me."

"No. Just the gun."

Eames almost thought it was funny that the shadows took Arthur and a gun but left him and Ariadne behind. Those shadows knew their weapons, all right.

He looked around. The projections all around them continued along their business. Acknowledging his and Ariadne's presence but not considering them worth killing. This wasn't limbo, he assured himself. It wasn't.

"We just need to wait. You haven't died or anything like that, so we're still probably only one layer in." He ignored the thought that maybe she was his projection now. He didn't want to think of how many layers Arthur might have gone under in the shadows.

"We'll just wait for the kick."

"Just wait?"

"We have to come out sometime, right?" He kept talking, not giving her time to answer that question, or even think about it too much, he hoped. He was thinking about it too much already. "Come along."

There was a coffee shop that didn't have too many shadows around it, and all of the projections seemed to be from the last few centuries or so. None of the projections here were like the man in the loincloth.

One of the projections struck up a conversation with Ariadne. It turned out that he had been an architect back in the gothic era of architecture in Britain. They chatted while Eames drank his coffee and eyed a bit of shadow that was lurking in one corner.

Arthur was in a shadow and he got the impression that all shadows were one. He wondered what it was like in the shadow. Was Arthur being eaten? Or was he biting? People came out of the shadows eventually, the man had said.

They'd get out of this with the kick.

They just had to wait.

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><p>Eames woke up with a splitting headache and no idea what had happened.<p>

He reached for his totem and checked that the poker chip felt right. He was awake.

He had been brought in by Arthur to do a job. The target was a translator who had done some work for the British Museum. They had been hired to steal the translation.

He knew that much. But… he felt like they had done their research, maybe even gone so far as to get to the target, but he couldn't really remember. The memories were fragmented like a traditional dream. He hadn't had a regular dream in years.

Had he dreamed?

"What happened?"

"Yusuf!" Ariadne had found their chemist, knocked out but probably not dead since he was also tied up.

Arthur, looking even more pinched than he usually did—he probably had a headache, too—messed around with one corner of the warehouse and pulled out a camera.

A few minutes later in which Eames tried to rest his eyes at the same time as watching Arthur, and a computer was showing the warehouse.

There they were, bringing the target in, setting him up with the PASIV device and plugging themselves in.

It was a boring video for the next three minutes. All four of them sleeping away and Yusuf quietly puttering around in his work corner.

And then the target woke up.

Pierson still had the IV in his arm but he woke up, and in less than 30 seconds had pulled the IV out, gotten across the room, and knocked Yusuf out cold. He tied him up, and then looked around the warehouse for another few minutes just checking things out. He found Arthur's little black book of contacts, flipped through it and pocketed it.

Eames could hear Arthur suck in a breath at that, but then slowly let it out.

Pierson found the file that Arthur had compiled on him, flipped through that and pocketed it too. He spent some time looking through Ariadne's and Yusuf's notes but didn't take any of them. Eames wasn't sure whether to be offended or not that the man barely glanced at his own notes.

It was five minutes and Eames-in-the-video was beginning to groan and shift. Pierson looked at the three of them consideringly, and despite this being a video of the recent past and Eames knowing that he was alive right now, he still felt a shiver at that thoughtful look. Pierson apparently decided to let them live.

He wrote a short note and left the warehouse.

The note was just set on a desk, easy to find but just as easy to overlook.

It said:

_People who go into my head don't get out again, not entirely. _

_If you manage to wake up with your minds intact enough to read this, consider yourselves lucky. _

_Since you managed to avoid waking anyone else in my head, you can consider the rest of the world lucky, too._

Eames couldn't remember anything from the dream, but he decided to take the man's advice and consider himself very lucky indeed.


End file.
